15 ways to tell you’re in deadly peril in a video game

Moustaches. Puddles. Piles of leaves! And 12 more sure-fire signs of impending digital death

Every single game ever made wants your character dead. Well, unless it’s got dancing babies on its box or it’s trying to lose you weight by forcing you to swing your arms around like a twat. With that in mind, we thought it might be helpful to give you a guide on how to spot impending video game danger. After you’ve brushed up on our exhaustive guide, which covers every sure-fire sign of peril from ominous music to evil facial hair, you’ll be dodging video game death like a pro. Oh, and we guarantee you’ll never look at a pile of leaves the same way again.

You reach a save
point in front of some massive, ominous door

Yeah, never a good sign this. Games which force you to save manually – Resi, God of War etc. – are rarely charitable. So when they casually suggest you should maybe protect your progress with this form of safety net, you better bloody do so. Because you can be sure of two things about that door: A) There’s something behind it that almost definitely wants to rip your face off and B) There’s no way in Hell you’re beating the bastard first time.

Above: Hmmmm, it’s probably the second one, right?

The game gives you
every weapon it has for apparently no reason

Wow, cheers Mr. Game that’s been a total dick to me for the last 10 hours. You’re really giving me every death laser, rusty, infected chainsaw and Arnie-shaming mini-gun with maxed out ammo, with absolutely no strings attached? Shucks, you’re too kind. Wait, where did this army of tooled-up to the teeth aliens/flesh-eating mutants/military insurgents suddenly spring from? Dang.

There's any sign of
blood

Blood is bad, pure and simple. See even a drop of it in a game and you can be sure whatever did the stabbing, shooting or ingesting to cause said plasma spillage is still in the area. Be it trails, pools or disturbing messages written in the red stuff; the presence of the claret of life means someone has suffered hugely. And, chances are, your character’s about to as well.